Monday, September 22, 2014

This weekend was a full "dog stuff" weekend for Bandit, and a bit for Tessa, as well. Dean Dog stayed home, but he got plenty of outdoor play in the afternoons.On Saturday we attended "Bark in the Park" at Colonel Denning State Park. It's a dog event to which people are welcome to bring their dogs. Our group did an Agility demo, but we mostly hung out under our canopies and socialized!!I brought Tessa to run and Bandit just for the experience.Tessa did a nice job on the little course. She was the only 20 inch jumper in the group, so people got to see her fly high!!After everyone had taken a turn, I took Bandit out just for some puppy exposure. A couple of friends and I actually ended up teaching him the tunnel and within minutes, he was going through a slightly curved tunnel! He liked that!After we did that, I took the two of them for a walk around the lake. We go there sometimes, so they are familiar with the place. They wanted to go around the whole Nature Trail, but I didn't want to take that much time away from the group.Bandit got a second turn on the course and he did tunnels again! It was cool that he learned a new skill.

I really enjoyed the day - especially having time to hang out with dog friends along with our dogs.On Sunday Bandit and I headed up to the training building to attend a Novice/Intermediate level Tricks Workshop. Bandit already has his Novice Tricks Title through Do More With Your Dog, so we were working on Intermediate tricks.I didn't actually think he would master enough to get the Intermediate title, but he did!! No, they aren't fluent tricks, but they are good enough to meet the criteria for that title.We had one particularly awesome moment during that workshop. The people who were working toward the Novice title were working on food leave-it's and Bandit already has the basics down on that. So, I worked it with a tug toy. I balled it up in my fist and played Doggie Zen with it. At first he tried to grab it, but he caught on to the fact that it was the same game very quickly. His reward - a vigorous game of tug!So, I started to cue "leave it" and he actually backed up a couple of steps! But here's the really cool thing . . . I could see in his eyes that he really understood what we were doing. I could see, "I get it! I know what you are asking!"It was really the first time I have seen that in him. Up until now I've seen a lot of "I'm a puppy! I'll do this!" without a whole lot of comprehension on his part.But this . . . he got!I am super excited to get back into training with him now!Look how grown up my baby boy is getting to be!